Article

Driving the Ford F-150 truck experience

Ford Trucks is employing showroom kiosks to help prospective customers kick the tires on the new F-150.

December 30, 2014 by Nicole Troxell — Associate Editor, Networld Media Group

When Ford Trucks identified its customers' needs, the company realized something was different about its particular demographic – these customers want a lot of information about product, especially the new, redesigned F-150 truck.

Its customers wanted to see the F-150's insides, watch it in action and learn about the utility of the vehicle. After all, F-150 customers often use their truck for multiple purposes beyond everyday casual driving: towing, hauling and off-roading, and more. For prospective buyers, it's very important to understand how the truck handles all of these different tasks.

Ford realized that it needed to provide customers with the ability to dig deep, to show the construction of the vehicle – information a customer typically can't find when simply talking to a salesperson. The company wanted to build an experience that would allow customers to interact with and learn the story of the F-150.

The automaker's quest for a solution led it to kiosk provider Jackson Dawson, and the two companies embarked on a year-and-a-half-long project, learning about just what they needed to communicate and how.

The project's end result: an interactive "Truth About Trucks" kiosk enabling Ford to promote the F-150's improved capabilities and features and show why the company chose to use an aluminum body instead of steel. It also enables comparisons with competitors' trucks, gives digital updates on the F-150, and lets users create onscreen their preferred F-150 with powertrains and options. In short, it allows customers to drive their own experience of the F-150.

Kiosk Marketplace spoke with Eric Peterson, F-150 marketing manager, on what the "Truth About Trucks" kiosks have done for Ford.

Kiosk Marketplace: What's the purpose of the "Truth About Trucks" kiosks, and how do they work?

Eric Peterson: Their purpose is to allow customers to interact with the display and to understand the changes and benefits of the new F-150. We knew a commercial in and of itself wouldn't tell all the information our demographic wants. The kiosks allow them to see it for themselves, and to interact with the information. We're launching from November to January and have about 1900 displays.

KM: Why the Ford F-150 in particular for the kiosk?

Peterson: The reason for that is that our customer wants a lot of detail, and they're the "prove it" type of customer. The kiosks allow potential buyers to see and touch things. Using the kiosk, customers can see the frame of a cross section or a comparison of aluminum versus steel. They can view specs on it, and see how it handles off-road and towing. The interactive display allows customer to see what’s important to them because they want to make sure they’re getting the best truck.

And we wanted to show the customer about the construction that goes into the truck and the attention to small details. With the kiosk, consumers learn about its footprint and see it in action.

KM:What have the kiosks done so far for customer service and sales?

Peterson: It's hard to correlate the two to directly tie it to sales. We don't have the data yet, but the kiosks are a critical foundation to marketing. They allow us a path to show how the F-150 is superior to its competitors.

KM: What design requirements and parameters did Ford have in mind when building the kiosks? How did Ford decide what they would look like?

Peterson:We met with Jackson Dawson a couple of times every week and with a team that did a lot of research. We knew the messages we wanted to send, but how to tell those stories took a long time and involved engineers extensively. We filmed the engineers for many videos, like safety and towing, to get our message across.

We also needed to make the kiosk more interactive and smaller for some dealerships. We knew the back of it had to look nice as well for those dealerships that may place it against a storefront of windows. From the start, we observed it in use and discussed how to make it better.

And we needed the flexibility to change and update it -- so we took the physical part and made it modular, so that we could snap parts of it on and off.

KM: Does it collect data? What kind?

Peterson:It can track usage and most frequently visited pages so that we can change things of less interest and develop stronger content, or reconfigure pathways to get to data. Customers can also email themselves information about the F-150, but the data capture is to improve use and functionality of system. So far, the feedback has been positive, and it's helped us improve the system every couple of weeks.

KM: How did you decide on content?

Peterson:The main concern was that the experience be driven by customer, but we had to decide on what kind of feedback and data we needed. We had to decide if it should display video, and if so, how often and should it be a continuous loop?

With technology like videos on a loop, the customer can't control their experience. With a touchscreen kiosk, however, they can control the experience and take it where they want. They can peel back the layers of the truck and examine the steel frame and cross members if they want. They can see how the frame is constructed. The kiosk brings the online experience to the showroom and serves as a supplement of information that's not normally found in dealerships.

We also needed to make sure we had analytic data and that the content was easily updatable. The content can be update remotely.

KM:How do you decide which dealerships receive kiosks or where they're placed in dealerships?

Peterson: Each dealer decides if they want one. Some put it in a service lane or waiting room, but it's up to the dealer where they display it, if they want to install it.

KM:Were you afraid kiosks would take away from sales opportunities?

Peterson:We feel like it enhances sales opportunities because it offers more in-depth information that our customers want. We have sales consultants at dealerships, but the kiosks allow customers to research on their own if they want.

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